


Condemned

by spookyawards_archivist



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, F/M, Pre-X-Files, Short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-10-04
Updated: 2003-10-04
Packaged: 2019-04-27 06:17:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14419398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookyawards_archivist/pseuds/spookyawards_archivist
Summary: Pre-XF.  "Teena and I are. getting divorced," he admitted finally, hating the way that words with such import could be spoken so normally, so plainly.





	Condemned

**Author's Note:**

> Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Spooky Awards](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Spooky_Awards), and was moved to the AO3 as part of the Open Doors project in 2018. I tried to reach out to all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are the creator and would like to claim this work, please contact me using the e-mail address on [SpookyAwards' collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/spookyawards/profile).

 

Condemned

## Condemned

### by Lakticia

Condemned  
by Lakticia 

disclaimer: Fun not profit... if only Rupert Murdoch felt 

the same way  
archive: Ephemeral, Gossamer, Harem; anywhere else just 
    
    
                let me know
    date:       26 Sept 03
    beta:       XScribe, bardsmaid, Spooky2u2 - thanks to all
    

feedback: Makes my day 

rated: PG  
category: S A  
keywords: Pre-XF  
spoilers: Nothing specific. General Mulder family stuff 

summary:  
"Teena and I are... getting divorced," he admitted finally, hating the way that words with such import could be spoken so normally, so plainly. 

* 

"Quitting the place that we love means that we are condemned to inhabit our loss forever." \- 'A Mapmaker's Dream', James Cowan 

* 

Bill Mulder stared, a sick feeling of surpriseless shock churning his stomach, the mashed potato gone dry in his mouth. The ghosts of Teena's words hung in the silence. "I'm filing for divorce." 

The solid oak dining table stretched between them. Teena stared back at him calmly, arms folded, terry cloth robe tied tightly at her waist, hair falling limply around her face, lips and eyebrows set in determined lines. Her expression expected and invited no response. 

Out in the hall, the solemn ticking of the grandfather clock measured the chasm of silence. 

"I'll have the papers for you to sign in a few weeks," she added. 

His heartbeat resumed with a shuddering thud. 

Divorce. Papers to sign. 

He nodded mutely, a jerking, tired movement; then swallowed, bent his head and forced a small forkful of food into his mouth. It was lukewarm, lifeless after having been left in the oven until midnight. 

Teena continued. "Fox and I will stay here. There's a house for sale in West Tisbury." 

He nodded again, his hooded eyes fixed on the plate before him. He chewed and swallowed. "All right." 

She watched him for a moment longer, before shooting a disapproving glance at the tumbler beside his plate quarter-filled with whisky. Then she turned and left, her footfalls retracing the path up the stairs she had descended only minutes earlier. 

Divorce. With a shaking hand he reached for the tumbler and downed a mouthful of liquor, his throat muscles clenching as it arced down his throat like sparks flying from a bonfire. Divorce. He stared dully at the halfeaten meal before him and listened to the footsteps disappearing into the bedroom. 

Divorce. 

* 

"You seem preoccupied." 

Charles spoke these words with his customary detachment. Always a step apart, even with a companion of decades. 

Bill sighed as the other man placed a cigarette between his lips and lit it in a series of well-practised movements. At the far end of the empty cafeteria, a waitress ran a cloth over the counter. 

He looked down at the coffee and the confidential papers spread out before him, feeling hemmed into the corner of the room. They always chose the corner, whether a place was full or empty. Second nature by now. 

"Teena and I are... getting divorced," he admitted finally, hating the way that words with such import could be spoken so normally, so plainly. 

A flicker of something passed over Charles's eyes and he raised his eyebrows infinitesimally, taking a pull on the cigarette and exhaling. "I see." 

A pause. Bill fiddled needlessly with a bunch of papers. 

"And you'd rather you weren't?" 

Resentment edged into the back of Bill's mind. A man could get sick of a man if they spent too long together. That... that cynical laughter that seemed always at the edge of Charles's voice. That supreme, emotionless control. 

He answered the question with a grim smile. "What reason do we have to stay together?" 

A pause. Charles tapped ash into his empty coffee mug. "Fox," he suggested tonelessly. 

Bill fixed him with a mirthless look and said nothing, distracted by the creeping voice of distrust inside. He looked out of the window as Charles finished his cigarette. Outside, the clouded sky gaped open, and heavy droplets of rain wept onto the grey streets. 

* 

Sunlight poured through the long windows in the kitchen, its caress bright yet cold. Teena stood with her back to him, chopping vegetables at the counter. A sharp line of sunlight bisected her profile, accentuating the slight wave in her dark hair, falling on the curve of her right arm as it rose and fell steadily like a swimmer slicing through water. 

Bill paused in the doorway, thinking. 

They had been joyful once. And, yes, even in love. A lifetime ago. When a woman's company was the best thing in a man's life, was the only good thing... wasn't that love? Was it? 

After a moment he entered the room, moving to the side, standing by the wall beside the counter. Teena paused to flicker a glance at him, then the steady chop-chop-chop resumed. 

In the brief silence he wondered how to introduce the subject. There was no point in stating the obvious; they both knew she had left the divorce papers in his study; they both knew he had spent the whole morning sitting in there. He hesitated, realising he was clenching his jaw, relaxing it. 

"What is it?" she finally asked tonelessly, not looking at him. 

He rested a hand on the counter and looked down at it, at his wedding ring. "I've been thinking... that house in West Tisbury. It's too big for me. Maybe you and Fox should take it. Leave me with this old place..." he gestured around pointlessly, then paused. "It might be good for him... to get away from here." 

Teena continued chopping for a few moments, then looked up, fixing him with a gaze as sharp and certain as midday. "I'm not going to disrupt his life any more than necessary. We'll be fine here." 

Faced with her stern look, he nodded slowly, thoughtfully. She dropped her gaze and resumed chopping. 

He opened his mouth, hesitated, then ventured further. "What about the summer house?" 

"Keep it." Her tone was matter-of-fact, as if the decision had already been made. 

"No, you should have it." His voice sounded strange with forced determination, loud but empty. "What would I do with it?" 

"Do what you like with it," she told him brusquely, continuing to dice the potatoes. "I don't intend _ever_ to go back to that place." 

He paused and watched her for a moment. "You could take Fox there." 

She stopped chopping suddenly and glared up at him. "I am _not_ going _back_ to that place," she repeated, her voice abrupt with tightly controlled - what? Anger? 

He flinched a little but said nothing as she went back to chopping, schooling her expression into the familiar coldness. 

What was so...? He didn't understand - and that look - that accusation, as if he was carefree and fine, as if she was the suffering saint in a house full of madmen. He leaned in a little and drew on his reserves of decisiveness. "The house is yours. If you don't want it, sell it." 

She gave him another cold glance. "I don't want the house. I don't want the money." 

"For God's sake, Teena!" he snapped, and she looked up again, surprise flickering in her eyes then disappearing, her jaw still clenched in determination, her lips set in a thin line. 

His insides shook and he took a breath, spoke again, his voice sounding reedy. "Take the damn house. If you don't want it, sell it," he repeated. "Put the money in Fox's college fund." 

She considered him silently for a moment, then dropped her gaze. "Fine." 

A sliver of surprise and relief fluttered inside him. Teena moved to the side and brushed the diced vegetables into a saucepan on the stove. "Are you ready to sign?" 

It took him a moment to catch up. "What?... Yes." 

She moved to the sink and rinsed off the chopping board. "Good. We can go to the attorney's after lunch." 

"Today?" The word was out of his mouth before he'd thought it. 

She turned to him and raised her eyebrows a fraction, challenging him to find any reason for postponement. 

He sighed wearily. "Fine." 

* 

Bill knocked twice and cleared his throat. "Fox?" 

Tentatively he turned the handle and opened the door halfway. 

The floor of Fox's bedroom was strewn with books, shoes and discarded clothes, creating a chaos that seemed to rise and permeate the room. The bedsheets lay in a limp heap at one end of the bed, half spilling onto the floor, twisted about as if thrashed off during sleep. Books, records and magazines covered the shelves in haphazard piles. The door of the wardrobe hung half open, clothes spilling out of it. Beyond the window, the dying embers of the evening faded behind the trees. 

Fox sat at his desk in the corner of the room, hunched over what must be homework. He looked towards Bill warily, taking a pen lid from his mouth, the top of it disfigured with teeth marks. 

Briefly wondering when Teena had last been in here, Bill noticed the window was open. 

"You shouldn't have the window open while the lights are on. Moths will get in," he said, nearly stepping across the room to close the window, but finding himself unwilling to step into no-man's-land, to disrupt a chaos he had no right over. 

Without a word Fox dutifully went to close the window. He drew the curtains closed and glanced at Bill as he returned to his seat. 

Bill was speechless for a moment. It wasn't often Fox made eye contact. The boy's eyes were... withdrawn, thoughtful \- wise, even. A twelve year old boy... 

With a sudden stab of realisation, he admonished himself for giving the boy a hard time before even saying hello. He watched as Fox sat down, turned back to his homework, started scribbling. His leg jiggled restlessly under the table. 

"Ah... The Magician's on," he ventured. "I thought you might want to watch it." 

The boy mumbled something Bill couldn't make out and continued scribbling. 

"What was that?" 

"I don't watch that any more," Fox repeated with a note of irritation, glancing towards Bill without looking at him. 

Bill nodded, somehow not surprised; of course he was out of touch, of course he was. Hesitantly, he watched the boy turning over the pages in his textbook. What could he... 

"How's school?" he asked. 

"Fine." 

A pause. "Your grades okay?" 

"Yeah." 

"Good. Good," he mumbled. Of course the boy's grades were okay. The teachers said he had a reading age of eighteen, for heaven's sake. He was smarter than Bill had ever been. 

"Well..." he faltered. "Keep working hard." The words felt bland and empty in his mouth. 

Fox grunted, semi-glancing at him again, then returned to his work. Bill looked around for a moment. With curtains drawn, the glare of the electric light made Fox's room seem darker, somehow. Claustrophobic. 

"Well..." he trailed off, then gave an awkward grunt and turned to leave. Closing the door, he started off down the hall. 

Behind him came the click of the door opening. "Dad?" 

He turned quickly to see Fox standing in the doorway, half hidden behind the jamb, looking at him hesitantly, thoughtfully. 

"Yes?" 

The boy's Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed. "When are you leaving?" 

A moment of silence, and Bill felt a suffocating heaviness settle slowly inside. The pitch of the boy's voice was starting to jump around crazily. 

Jesus, where had all the goddamn time gone? 

"A week from Saturday," he answered, his voice rough with age and tiredness. "..Will you be here?" 

Fox shrugged, half-nodded, hesitated, then turned and disappeared into his room. 

Bill remembered Charles' toneless suggestion. "Fox." No, he... he was exactly the reason why they should _not_ stay together. This marriage, this family, this house, it.. throbbed with agony and tension, as if full of magnets placed inches apart, and if he stayed it would beat Fox down, it would... destroy him. He had to give the boy a chance at.. at peace, at anything. Had to. 

Banishing the thoughts from his mind, Bill turned and continued to the staircase. The hallways, doorways, stairs, walls, seemed to sag and groan with sorrow. 

* 

The knock at the study door made Bill jump. He was standing motionless in front of an open box, staring at an old book. 

The Book of Baby Names. It sat heavily and dustily in his hand, obviously something which had accidentally found its way into the study from Teena's bookshelves in the hall. Though it wasn't much like Teena, either, to own such a book; probably a present from a female friend, her sister, her mother, something like that. 

"Come in," he called, quickly dropping the book into its storage place. 

Teena entered wearing an apron, and they shared the brief, solemn look which passed for a greeting between them. Then she wordlessly handed him three or four sheets of paper. 

He examined them briefly. They were covered in her precise script; on the first page were small paragraphs headed "Basic Pasta", "Basic Rice", "Lamb Chops" and "Vegetables". 

He looked up at her, surprised. 

"I thought that might be helpful to you," she said, her expression and tone giving nothing away. No embarrassment, shyness, sadness, affection. Nothing. 

"Ah- thank you," he answered, hesitantly, sincerely. 

She nodded imperceptibly and glanced around the room. It looked like a video paused at the wrong moment, a painting done by two different people. Half his possessions sat in cardboard boxes; the other half lay where they had always been, gathering dust on the shelves. 

Her lips opened with a faint dry pop, then she hesitated. "-Everything going OK?" She gestured to the open box beside him. 

"Ah, yes. Fine," he nodded, glancing at the boxes already filled. "Should be.. finished soon." 

"Good." 

With another slight nod, she turned and left. The large door banged shut loudly, sounding like gavel on block. Bill watched as the heavy slam sent a cloud of tiny dust motes into the air, where they hovered awhile before starting the slow, mournful descent to the floor. 

* 

The house was silent with the expectation of loss, a sick version of Christmas Eve, a parody thought up by some cruel huckster of a deity. Teena had gone to bed hours ago, Fox... Fox never made any noise, any fuss, he could be doing anything up in his room. Outside Bill's study, in the hall, the grandfather clock ticked barrenly, sounding like the left-right-left-right of soldiers on parade, the expectant look on a colleague's face, the countdown of a bomb. 

He sat at his desk, wondering briefly when the boy had last said goodnight to him before going to bed. Boxes and suitcases were stacked at the far end of the room. The bookshelves, walls, desk and cupboard sat empty and forlorn. The sharp angles and dull colour of the boxes and empty wooden fixtures filled the room with a stark, hardedged mourning. 

He swirled whisky around in a glass, staring at it dully. 

/Remind me again what the point is,/ an anguished voice begged inside. 

/It's your job. Your country. The future,/ came the tired, dark reply. 

He tipped the liquor down his throat, swallowing almost desperately, closing his eyes as it burned its path inwards. 

/ _Whose_ future?/ 

/Shhh. Too late for that now./ 

He unscrewed the bottle lid, took a moment to steady his hand, and poured another measure. The liquid trickled into the glass like rainwater into the gutter. 

Out in the hall, the grandfather clock chimed midnight with a sigh. 

* 

end 

Feed a hungry semi-newbie!   
  


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